summary by A.W:
G. Minkenberg writes about the miraculous Maria
statue of the cathedral of Aachen, its insignia,
jewels and votive gifts.
Wibke Huebner traces the history of clothing of
statues and together with Monica Paredis-Vroon
she compilated the present catalogue of costumes
for Virgin Mary and Child.
The catalogue is small and made in a simple way.
It is useful as it describes the costumes, with
datation, measurements, Inventary Numbers,
technique and condition of the pieces. Only few
black and white illustrations are added.
The wooden statue was first sculptured in 1325. A
fire of 1676 destroyed it and only the face and
the right hand of the Virgin and the face of
Christ were saved. These parts were fitted in a
new baroque statue. 38 costumes of the statue are
preserved in the treasury of the cathedral. The
oldest costume was donated in 1629 by Isabella
Clara Eugenia (regent of Belgium). Other famous
donations were: in 1700 a red gown by Eleonore of
Wittelsbach, in 1690 a red velvet gown by emperor
Joseph Ist. The newest costumes were made in 1985
by Elisabethinnen Schwestern, Kloster Preussweg,
Aachen, in 1987 by Christa Queck, Aachen, in 1992
by Josefa Willms, Aachen.

Each
year the Vicenza Antiquaria, the antiques fair in
Vicenza presents a selection of the best items
from the minor museum collections of
the Veneto. This year the choice fell on church
vestments and lace from the collection of the
Istituzioni di Ricovero e di Educazione, the old
hospitals, charitable institutions and
girls schools of Venice. This collection of
nearly 1000 objects is scattered over various
churches, oratories and institutes.

The
selection shown in Vicenza included chasubles
from three sets of embroidered vestments. Two
with rich embroidery in coloured silks and gold
thread are dated to the first half of the 18th
century and attributed to Venetian workshops. The
third, embroidered in coloured silks, has a
design of 18th-century inspriation, but with
elements that date it to the second half of the
19th century. Nos 1 and 3 come from the Ospedale
dei Derelitti (lOspedaletto), no 2 from Pio
Luogo delle Penetenti.

catalogue:
Rubenstextiel/Rubenss TextilesAntwerp 1997
text in Dutch and English,
illustrated in colour and black and white

This
exhibition, held in the splendid setting of the
Hessenhuis, a 16th-century warehouse of which the
interior was adapted in the 19th century, marked
the fiftieth anniversary of the Rubens House in
Antwerp. The last section of the lavish
catalogue, which is devoted to embroidery, begins
with an excellent introduction by Frieda Sorber
on embroidery in Antwerp in the 17th century.
Much documentary evidence is presented on
professional embroiderers, whose numbers
increased in the first half of the century, but
declined sharply thereafter. An interesting
aspect here is the evidence of contact between
Antwerp embroiderers and their counterparts in
Spain. Records reveal that the period of
apprenticeship for an embroiderer was three
years, after which he could become a master,
provided he could afford the enrolment fee. There
are no references to women in the registers of
the Antwerp Guild of St Luke, the painters
guild to which the embroiderers also belonged, in
the first half of the 17th century and only two
in the second half.

The professional embroiderers in the
guild mainly did church work, but they probably
also embroidered costume items such as gloves,
although, to judge from inventories and account
books, not much embroidery seems to have been
worn by well-to-do people in 17th-century
Antwerp. Embroidery was also used only sparsely
for furnishing, but many inventories contain
references to embroidered pictures, some of which
may have been amateur work. Nor have any Antwerp
cabinets decorated with embroidery been found in
Antwerp inventories as yet, although they are
mentioned in trade records from 1621 to at least
1665. Interesting documentary evidence is also
given in the discussion of techniques.
The section on white embroidery on linen
naturally focusses on the records of the Plantin
firm, but other accounts are also quoted, notably
those of the De Wael firm from 1648 onwards,
which contain several references to whitework
designed in Antwerp and combined with Flemish
lace, but actually worked in Spain.

By contrast to all
this commercial activity, references to amateur
work done at school or in the home are almost
nonexistent. Nor were any pattern books ever
published in Antwerp. The embroideries in the
exhibition, all illustrated in colour, have
scenes after compositions by Rubens, which
continued to be used up to the first quarter of
the 18th century. These are worked in or nue
and/or needle painting and show varying degrees
of refinement. It seems possible to distinguish
various hands, but no attributions can be made to
a particular workshop.

Altar frontal

Chasuble, with
symbols
of Four Evangelists

One
piece bears the date 1658: a chalice veil showing
the Descent of the Holy Ghost surrounded by
beautifully worked symmetrical coiling stem and
formal ornament in gold thread of various kinds
on a red satin ground.

The most splendid embroidery in the
exhibition was a breathtakingly beautiful altar
frontal with a central scene of the Baptism of
Christ done in subtle needle painting, which is
surrounded by cherubs heads and a design of
scrolling branches with flowers, fruit and leaves
worked mainly in gold and some silver thread in
relief against a background embroidered in silver
thread. The gold embroidery is further enhanced
by subtle accents in coloured silks, but the most
extraordinary thing about it is that, although it
is so rich and extensive, it does not distract
attention from the small central medaillion.
Unfortunately the catalogue contains only a
detail photograph of the latter, which does not
do justice to the beauty of the frontal as a
whole. It belonged to the Begijnhof church at
Lier and probably came from the same workshop as
a chasuble orphrey from Antwerp Cathedral showing
the Resurrection surrounded by the symbols of the
four evangelists, the purchase of which was
recorded in 1721, though without any mention of
the name of the embroiderer, who was certainly a
supreme craftsmen, not to say artist. These
pieces are, indeed, all the more remarkable for
dating from a period when this kind of embroidery
was rapidly going out of fashion.

An
interesting account of three patchwork quilts
made by British and Commonwealth women who were
interned in Chiangi gaol in Singapore from 1942
to the middle of 1944. The quilts, each composed
of 66 six-inch squares of white sacking
embroidered and signed by individual women, were
made as gifts for the British, Australian and
Japanese Red Cross. They were also a way of
communicating with the womens menfolk, who
at that time were interned in Chiangi Military
Barracks. Many of the squares inevitably reflect
the popular floral embroidery of the day and
there is even a crinoline lady in one
of them, but some contain nostalgic or patriotic
motifs or reflections of the womens harsh
situation. The quilts given to the Japanese and
Australian Red Cross are now at the Canberra War
Memorial in Australia, that given to the British
Red Cross in the British Red Cross Museum.

Say it
with flowers: the whole quilt made for the
Japanese Red Cross in which the women were
careful to avoid blatantly antagonistic images,
but which, bearing the stitched signatures ofits
makers, remains nevertheless a poignant testament
to their courage and endurance

"It
was only a dream":a detail from the British
quilt

"Something
of herself": a detail from the British quilt
which includes Scottish and Welsh national
symbols.

Summary by A.W,
The monography of the textile artist is divided
into 3 parts. The first part is dedicated to
biographical statements, part two deals with the
artistic development, part three is a work
catalogue.
Elsi Giauque-Kleinpeter studied at Zuerich School
of Arts and Crafts and her most important
teachers were Sophie Taeuber Arp (1889-1943) and
Otto Morach (1887-1973). She was married to her
collegue and painter Fernand Giauque. From
1925-1943 they made their living by creating and
selling works of art and craft. In 1925 they
exhibited in Paris at the international
exhibition of decorative art, and in 1928 Elsi
took part at the Swiss womens exhibition
SAFFA.

From 1944-1966 she
was teaching students at the Zuerich School of
Arts and Crafts. In early years she was
experimenting with different techniques and there
are a few embroideries and also printed textiles.
But the period from 1967-1989 was most important
for her artistic development.
During her studies in Zuerich she learned how to
play with marionettes. Later on from 1930-40 she
and her husband had their own puppet show. Here
she was fascinated by the movement of the
threads. It became the basis of her future work.
She was convinced that textile art has its own
language an there is no connection with painting.

Elsi Giauque
exhibited many times at the Biennials of Lausanne
and all Triennials of Milan. Her works are
exhibited in museums, churches, theaters, schools
and private houses. Here she developed space
installations. Her "element spatial"
was shown in different exhibitions. With these
and other textile space sculptures she became one
of the pioneers of free textile art.

Contents:
Introduction, 1) before the building of the New Hall, 2)
Hardwick New Hall and the 1601 inventory, 3) Embroidery,
needlework and other techniques, 4) the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries, 5) the 6th Duke and beyond.
Notes, Bibliography, Appendix, Glossary, Index

In this first lavishly
illustrated and authoritative introduction to the
collection, Santina Levey places the textiles in their
day-to-day context. Using account books and other
archival material, she describes the origins of the
different types of furnishing, whether bought ready-made
or put together and decorated by embroiderers.
Inventories, letters, and personal reminiscences are used
to chart the later history of the house and the
inevitable alterations that four hundred years of use
wrought on the original furnishings.

A second volume will be published
later in the form of a catalogue of the embroideries with
full technical descriptions and information about the
sources of their designs and subject-matter. They will
also be assessed in relation to other surviving pieces
and to relevant descriptions in sixteenth century
archival material.

Bess as Lady
Cavendish, painted by a follower of Eworth, c. 1557. She
wears a quantity of jewellery and her fine clothes
include a linen smock worked with red

The New Hall
at Hardwick, viewed from the west with the initials E S
for Elizabeth Shrewsbury showing silk clearly against the
sky

Main topic
of the thesis are the vestments donated by empress Maria
Theresia. An important one is the chasuable of 1773,
today in the Schnuetgen Museum, Koeln. In an introductory
part Dorit Koehler deals intensly with the vestments as a
whole, compared to textile art of 18th century in
Austria. On the basis of the Maria Theresia
vestment-exhibition in Vienna of 1904 Dorit Koehler
examins a great number of examples. In a catalogue she
groupes all the donations according to embroidery
techniques. She distinguishes: Metall embroidery,
applications with intertwined cord or applications form
shapes of flowers cut from silk ribbons.

Altogether 92 vestments are brought
together and this gives a good idea of the dimension of
the donations of the empress from 1740 to 1780.

part of the
collection made by the designer Mariano Fortuny and his
parents is on display at the Biblioteca Nazionale
Marciana and the headquarters of the Cassa di Risparmio
di Venezia in Venice until 24 th February 1998. The
collection, acquired by the Venice Savings Bank in 1965,
mostly comprises woven silks, but there are also some
embroidered church vestments, Chinese imperial robes and
embroidered items from areas like Turkestan and Croatia.
The catalogue covers all the items in the colletion.

Various
types of embroidery are illustrated in this account of
19th-century fashions in Belgium. They include
embroidered slippers, braces, uniforms and patterns for
these, an embroidered linen dress of c. 1825, bags, a
satin apron of c. 1845, a finely embroidered ball gown of
1894 and a satin dress of 1907-1909 with machine
embroidery.

embroidered
linen dress

detail of
embroidery

Dilys
E. Blum,
The Fine Art of Textiles, The Collection of the
Philadelphia Museum of Art,
Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1997
illustrated in colour and black and white, glossary,
bibliography

sent by
Pat Griffiths:
Embroideries figure in a number of sections in this
splendidly illustrated book. Each section begins with a
history of the acquisition of the type of textile in
question, followed by a representative series of
illustrations with full captions. On pp. 47-8 it is
explained how the embroidery display by the Royal School
of needlework in London at the Piladelphia Centennial
Exhibition of 1876 led to the establishment in 1878 of an
Art Needlework Department in what was then called the
Pennsylvania Museums School of Industrial Design,
which became a separate institution the year after.
Embroideries were also acquired by the museum, mostly to
serve as models for the application of art to industry,
but collecting was not done systematically, so there are
still many gaps in the collection.

Ecclesiastical
embroideries (pp.49-55) include German, Italian and
Flemish Medieval orphreys, a Spanish 17th-century
chasuble, Tyrolean, German, Italian and French chasubles
of the 18th century, including a German one dated 1755,
and two Italian copes, one 17th, one 18th century.

Also illustrated
(pp.56-612) are an English Elizabethan embroidered coif
and 17th-century crewelwork hanging, French and Italian
valances, an English heralds tabard of the early
18th century, an American womans pocket and an 18th
century stomacher and collar, possibly from Italy, a
Swiss wall pocket, Spanish and Mexican work, a Berlin
woolwork picture, an ecclesiastical embroidery attributed
to Walter Crane, a curtain designed by Alexander Fisher
and a handkerchief designed by Hector Guimard.

A further section covers
samplers and embroidered pictures (pp. 76-89), mainly
from the large Whitman Sampler Collection donated in
1969. The collection as a whole numbers nearly 700
samplers and embroidered pictures. Illustrated are a
Philadelphia school sampler of 1737, a varied selection
of British samplers, Spanish and German examples, a dutch
darning sampler and various American examples, including
a whitework one of 1771, plus embroidered pictures of
various dates.

The
section on quilts and coverlets, pp. 89-101 comprises a
fine array of American work of various kinds.
The collection further includes Persian (pp.116-7),
Turkish (pp. 120-123), Algerian (p. 124), Greek Island
(p. 125) and Central Asian (pp. 126-7) work; Indian
embroidery of many kinds (pp. 130, 131, 133, 136,
137-146); Chinese embroideries including robes and work
for the Western market (pp. 165, 168, 169, 172, 173-177)
and fine Japanese embroideries, including kimonos (pp.
180-183, 185, 186, 189, 191).

In
this article the series of 4 embroidered tapestries is
compared with 3 similar and at the same time different
designs:
The tapestries show Apollo, Juno, Venus, Saturn and they
were identified by M.J.P. Babelon in 1967 as belonging to
Sully, the coat of arms are those of the family Bethune
Sully. Venus of the tapestries could very well represent
Gabrielle dEstrees maîtresse of Henry 4, and she
could have ordered the series between 1594-1599. Nicolas
Fleury, valet de chambre and embroiderer of Henry 4,
possibly embroidered them.
Gabrielle died on the 10th of April 1599 at the birth of
her 4th child. At that time her father Antoine
dEstrees lived as grand maître dArtillerie
in the Arsenal. When he learned about his daughters death
he very quickly saved her precious belongings.
The king forced him to quit his position and his
predecessor since November 13th 1599 was Sully. He also
lived in the Arsenal and probably found the tapestries
here. He might have had the idea to complete the series
representing himself and his family. In his inventary of
1634 the embroiderer Boudin is named.

Diane,
design of the collection de Gagnieres, Paris, Bibl. Nat.

Venus, tenture de
larsenal. Ecouen

A
Schole-House for the Needlea reprint of Richard Shorleyker in 1632
with an historical background

by Santina M. Levey
A reprint of a rare Lace and Embroidery Pattern book.
Over 60 illustrations of lace and embroidery patterns
from the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.
With an Introduction from The Lace Guild and a Foreword
from The Embroiderers Guild.

reported by A.W.
The 5th sampler exhibition of Whitney Antiques of 1997
the theme of British and Irish place names is chosen.
Included is a group of four Quaker samplers from Ackworth
School and two Manchester Sunday School samplers. They
have not been illustrated previously.
The names of the village or town in which the samplers
were worked enabled to trace specific details about the
institutions in which the samplers were worked.
Ackworth School was founded by Dr. John Fothergill in
1779 from the Foundling Hospital at Ackworth, Yorkshire.
Education was provided for children whose parents were of
the Quaker faith. Until 1847 there were no annual
holidays and many of the children did not return home
until after their education was completed. Education was
combined with manual work. Extra money was earned by
taking orders for plain sewing from the outside
community.
The girls embroidered their samplers in one colour in
cross stitch on a woollen ground. The motifs appear in a
series of medaillons and octagons with a border of hall
shapes. These forms peculiar to Quaker needlework are
also to be found in America.

During the early 19th c.
the Sunday School movement was the only education
available to the poor. It was started by Robert Raikes
(1735-1811) around 1780. The growth of the movement was
due to Sara Trimmer and Hannah More. Children could be
admitted from the age of 5 years and they were taught
reading by studying the bible. The girls were also taught
sewing and knitting skills.